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Digitization The Aquinas Terminal #BPage -- WS (Situation Update) ##Considered Savage and X-51 to be "inconsequential -- even useful" but orders launch. Wants V-burg shut down before UC online. ##"And don't worry about Daedalus. I've made some improvements to Icarus that might surprise even Everett." ##WS: I've connected w/X-51. Transactions from Payens gave me away w/Everett/Daedalus. Savage missing containment vessel. Sent someone (his daughter) to Pasadena Lab. ##Mole in X-51? Bottom of the Well: Area 51, Sector 3 #PC itself: old? Helios plants? Wide time-range -- 3 decades I'd guess. Very useful -- 2.5 pages of data. #Stanton Dowd (what): "Everett and I will join you (where?) shortly. We'll bring back the old institutions, the prosperity of the last century, the giddy acquiesence. Trust us, JC. We can put the world back together." (Shouldn't he be close to or already dead? Gray Death?) #Resolved: Evil: Illuminati, Neutral: Helios, Good: Tong ##Originally all 3 more or less good ##Represents a personal paradigm shift in between playthroughs? It had been 2 years since I last finished the game #''"WHO WE ARE IS BUT A STEPPING STONE TO WHAT WE CAN BECOME."'' Analysis #The latest of the four e-mails, sent during the game. ##X-51 is no threat to MJ12 or A51; why destroy them? They probably know too much is the issue. ##Code for merging the two AIs together? Either side may have written it -- case for Everett can be seen on Page 33, #8. ##Plot updates to Page, mostly. ##How does Simons know all of this? There must be a mole within X-51, not unlike the placement of a few Iluminati units at the Sub-Base and Ocean Labs. Bottom of the Well: Area 51, Sector 3 Backing out of the terminal and onward with the game. #How old is this terminal? Of course, it is no different than any other terminal in the game but the age of the e-mails and data on there goes back at least two decades. It's extremely useful in filling a few plot holes. (Further analysis -- Julia retrieves those four e-mails from some other unknown location harboring and even larger data well. The terminal is hers.) #Stanton Dowd shows up, for some reason and through means unknown. Suggests JC join the Illuminati to bring it back to a 20th century prosperity, with captains of industry and robber barons and the like all implied. Where and when do the three of them meet up? What may be discussed? Dowd's health seems to be on the upswing too -- little to no coughing. #At this point, I've made my decision on which ending to go with as the canon one. I'd originally anticipated any one of them being a possible "good" ending, and chose the Illuminati or Helios endings on my two previous playthroughs several years ago. However, I now see that there are negatives to all three of them. The Illuminati fixes major problems, but then strengthens megacorporations and powerful individuals as they slip back behind the curtains, guiding with an invisible, if unsteady and discriminating hand. Helios sacrifices all human liberty for perfection and, without the hubris of JC, would be the perfect solution. Tong's comment on government being on a scale comparable to its citizens sticks with me here as central theme for good. Politically, I tend to fall towards the socialist end of the spectrum, but Deus Ex perfectly exemplifies the idea of a government that is simply too large. Removing it entirely would put people everyone to work towards localized, common goals; a central theme in any socialist ideologies. #Everything is a process, growing, changing, improving. One must only strive to achieve a betterment of themselves to succeed. The physical end of this is explored in great detail in the game through augmentations and the like, and the mental side is explored heavily through ideological discussions between characters, but the social, and spiritual aspects of the self are largely left unrepresented. This single sentence, used in the announcement trailer for DX3, exemplifies what DX is about. Page 48 Category:Project Pages Category:Key Pages Category:Critical Pages